Japan

In Japan executions are done by hanging.

The inmates often have been in solitary confinement for decades before they are executed. They learn only on the morning of the execution day that they will be executed on this day. Families only learn afterwards that their relatives do not live any more.

The Japanese penal law provides for 18 crimes for which one can be executed: These are among others murder, robbery, rape with lethal consequences.

Executions are treated in Japan as a state secret. According to Amnesty International 15 people were executed in 2008.

After the appointment of Keiko Chiba in September 2009 to the new minister of justice the death penalty could be suspended at least for the next years. The 61 year old lawyer has been a self-avowed opponent of the death penalty for twenty years now.